Last of the Mohicans Rifle

[oldwood]

All the ramrod wear marking in barrels i've seen , including my own , is usually in one area and depending if the loader is right handed or left handed , and or the barrel is too long for the loader to hold the rifle vertical when loading. ... It won't be even all the way around unless the muzzle is coned for easier ball starting.. Just an opinion from what i've observed. oldwood

 

[Hlane]

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This thread fell off to a literary critique.....anyway, back to the rifles... ...

 

[Hlane]

Old wood, did you start your Killdeer build? Who's precarve are you using?

 

[Hlane]

Bill Rooks used to build a copy of the movie gun........you can find some photos of one by searching killdeer rifle in google......it has set triggers....not sure if the movie gun had set triggers or a simple trigger.....movie gun had a small siler lock (to make it look longer), Rupp buttplate....Haines trigger guard.....some carving , incised......

 

[Hlane]

From another forum.....

"Barrel was swamped .50 caliber built by Getz (1 1/16 at breech, 13/16 at mid, and 7/8 at muzzle) 50 inches long
Lock—Small Siler (made gun look even longer) (Mann wanted to make the gun look as long as possible)
Triggers—Davis
Allentown School (Rupp), with all iron furniture (Rupp buttplate, Isaac Haines trigger guard)
Stock stained light ( Brian Lemaster and Wayne worked together on the stain on this rifle and
some of the other rifles from "Last of the Mohicans"

 

[Pukka Bundook]

For the movie, a rubber replacement was made for the rough scenes... Never seen it though.

 

[oldwood]

Hlane........I got a stock , barrel inlet , R/R routed and drilled , from a friend who is retired from the stock carving business maybe 10+ years ago. I haven't started the build yet and will probably begin in November w/ a finish date end of Jan. 2021. I won't be using the list of parts used on the original movie gun though. I'll go brass , no Lancaster Hanes parts , and no small Siler lock. Since the rifle seems to fit the sort-of Lehigh school description of the 1760 era , I'll go w/Lehigh. I'll alter the length of pull for a normal human frame , as DDL length of pull was perhaps 15+ inches. As old Granny from W.Va. used to say , "he's a big'un." Will be fun sighting this rifle in.
I was working away from home at the time , and the local theater in the town was showing the movie and I was bored w/ nothing to do at night. I viewed the movie three nights in a row and enjoyed it to the maximum. I read all Eckert's books and other sources as well , so was historically prepped for the movie story line. .........oldwood

 

[Hlane]

Old wood, sounds cool....please post pictures of your build......in the process myself of getting as much info and parts together myself......think I'm going more for the "movie gun"........over the years, there have been many threads on this particular rifle.........many call the rifle a fantasy piece and to forget it and build a HC rifle.......my thoughts are, all are " fantasy" pieces.......none of us are long hunters, trappers, or what not......I just enjoy the guns, I grew up with Fess Parker's Daniel Boone on tv.......that show sparked my imagination and gave me the interest in ML guns........

 

[Hlane]

 

[oldwood]

Hlane.....More power to you. Make us proud. When I was starting into building m/l guns , I visited **** and Donnie Getz' barrel shop. Donnie asked me , what do you expect to accomplish making m/l guns? Jokingly I said ,I wanted to cover the earth w/them.. Again , still trying to fulfill my wish. What has tempered my m/l experience is in depth study of "why were the guns made as they were?" In this study , I've found what happened in history on the frontier to bias m/l history. Personal accounts written down by relatives of the original actors have given a glimpse here and there of the guns used , what they used them for , how they hunted, the Indian wars fought , and how the guns fit into their daily lives.
Also , there is a good amount of info on the Moravian Brotherhood gun builders in eastern Pa.. Their mission statement of "helping all people in need" , caused them to come from central Europe to the American frontier, and so bringing central European gun science w/them which proved to be inadequate for the people living here. These imported m/l gunsmiths quickly followed the needs of the frontier hunters, and others wanting to protect their families . Nowadays , history , more than anything , effects what I build.
Early on , by looking at original guns , I found the sticklers to the idea of , "they never did that." , were just mostly uninformed of the true picture of what was actually done. Anyway , I'm way out in the weeds , cane break , or what ever................oldwood

 

[Hlane]

In the 50 odd years since that tv show, I've read books, handled originals and fine crafted contemporary guns......have a couple or three of each.......I enjoy just about everything connected to these weapons.......just amused when "Killdeer" comes up and the bay sayers climb on the soapbox and espout why a person should not build such a rifle. ... I'm old enough now to realize I don't need validation from anyone......now, if we want to talk about a really "wrong" rifle, take a look at the one used by Parker in Daniel Boone!

 

[jonathan butcher]

Wow, love the rifle in your left hand!

View attachment 44154.
This thread fell off to a literary critique.....anyway, back to the rifles... ...

 

[Hlane]

That's Wayne Watson, he built the movie guns.

 

[Rudyard]

Dear Oldwood . I like your mission statement you' Wanted to cover the earth with guns '. Well ML ones at least. I've only made just short of 200 but they do span the earth in distribution & for that matter styles( I didn't count' in the whites' or rock drill & copper pipe '.specials' )or restocked . It is indeed a bold man who declares "They never did that ! " very likely most did stick within a certain style but there are always quirky folks who did what they fancied . Good on you .
Regards Rudyard

 

[toot]

they are both beautifull.

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

I know the current owner of the ‘Killdeer’ rifle built for Danial Day Lewis. He’s getting old, and hasn’t been at our recent BP shoots, yet is still quite alive, but is only a few towns away from me.

I’ll give him a call and see if I can arrange to take some measurements and photos!

 

[oldwood]

Rudyard..............Congrats....@ 200 , you have done well. I'm only in the 150 range. My only regret , is having a very difficult and stressful professional career lasting 41 years. M/l rifle art kept me relatively sane and allowed me to meet many like minded , and talented folks. My latest endeavor is to help a couple of aspiring m/l builders see if they can develop the skills to build a m/l rifle. It's a work in progress.............oldwood

 

[Hlane]

I know the current owner of the ‘Killdeer’ rifle built for Danial Day Lewis. He’s getting old, and hasn’t been at our recent BP shoots, yet is still quite alive, but is only a few towns away from me.

I’ll give him a call and see if I can arrange to take some measurements and photos!

That would be great! As much this rifle is talked about, there are precious few pictures, & none of them very good! It would be nice to see some good photos and have accurate measurements!

 

[firemanjim68]

A few years back a friend of mine and forum member named Mike Oldarmy built a couple of rifles for me and one of them was a copy of the "Killdeer Rifle".
I managed to get a copy of the pattern of "Killdeer" from Mike Rooks years ago and so Oldarmy built this rifle for me using this pattern.
For the most part, it is a pretty nice copy of the "Killdeer" with some exceptions that make it more unique to my tastes.

For one, the "Killdeer" is kinda sorta based on the Lehigh school of rifles but as you probably noticed, the butt is a lot shorter LOP than the movie rifle. My LOP is 13 1/2 whereas Daniel Day Lewis has much longer arms than me and I think the LOP on his movie rifle was 15 1/2 inches....lol.

Anyway, the rifle is .50 cal with a 50 inch swamped barrel made by Ed Rayl whereas the movie rifle was a 48" barrel made by Getz.

The stock is tiger maple, hand scraped and all the carvings are accurate from the movie rifle blueprints.
All furniture on my rifle is german silver versus the movie rifle that used iron furniture and the sideplate is from the Lehigh school whereas the plate on the "Killdeer" movie rifle is an ugly looking thing that fits no school of rifle builders and was built just for the movie rifle and has some sort of "moon' and stars" engraving on it.
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Lock is a Large Siler flintlock.

Oldarmy was an excellent gun builder and he built me some beautiful rifles but at the time, he didnt feel comfortable building a wooden patchbox for me which is one of the things on my rifle that differ from the movie rifle.

Lastly, the "Killdeer" movie rifle sported some sort of blue ink decorations on the stock which are very hard to see in the movie and can only be seen clearly in some production movie pics on the internet and there are also a lot of small tacks mounted around each pin holding the barrel in place on each side of the rifle which you can just barely see when "Hawkeye" raises his rifle to do a "mercy" shot on the British officer being burned alive.

I don't have the plans anymore but a fellow forum member here who is a gunsmith here in San Antonio has them and so I'll try to make contact with him and maybe he can help you with getting a copy of the plans.

 

[firemanjim68]

Here are some pics of a "Killdeer" rifle made by Mr. Rooks. (Not Mine).
You can see the differences between that rifle and mine especially the sideplate and if you look closely at the pic of DDL holding his rifle you might see the blue paint right next to the wood patchbox and the decorative steel pins I mentioned.